Liam O'Flaherty - Land

They went away next morning for a honeymoon trip of ten days. Clancy was a changed man on his return. He had become sullen, brutal, drunken and insolent. He soon began to give orders in the shop as if he were sole master, although the marriage settlement had expressly stated the contrary. About a fortnight after his return, he and Bartly almost came to blows about the collection of a debt.

“Understand once and for all,” Clancy said during the quarrel, “that I give orders here in future.”

“You do no such thing,” Bartly said. “It’s written down that I give orders here as long as I live.”

Then Clancy took the little man by the throat and said:

“One word more out of you and it will be your last.”

Bartly offered no further resistance to his son-in-law. He went to his wife and bemoaned the unexpected outcome of the wedding he had so zealously promoted.

“Bloody woe!” he said. “I caught a Tartar in that young fellow. Oh! Boy! What a wolf in sheep’s clothing he turned out to be!”

“Devil mend you!” his wife said spitefully. “I warned you against this marriage. Poor Julia! She looks like a ghost already and she married only a month. That drunkard will be the death of her.”

Julia herself was entirely to blame for looking “like a ghost” and for all the evil that had come into Clancy’s soul. She loathed her husband with her whole heart after he had taken her. She set out at once to make his life a torment. Night after night, as soon as they were in bed together, she began to goad him with extravagant tales of her relationship with Michael and of the mysterious power that the Fenian leader exercised over women. She hinted that she was still a victim of that mysterious power and that she was unable to banish him from her mind or heart, in spite of constant prayer. This vile attack always drove the foolish Clancy to a white heat of jealousy, which he tried to assuage by making savage love to her. His hatred of O’Dwyer became intense.

Then Raoul launched “the final assault” against Captain Butcher. The Committee issued an order to the people of Manister.

“The people are forbidden,” ran the order, “as from this day, to render any service or pay any money to Captain Butcher, or to any member of his household, or to anybody acting on his behalf. The people are likewise forbidden to address Captain Butcher, or any member of his household, or anybody acting on his behalf, either in speech, or in gesture, or in writing. Any infringement of this order will be punished to whatever extent the Commitee considers necessary, such punishment to be carried out by the competent authority duly appointed for that purpose.”

Clancy rebelled at once against this order.

“I’ll have none of it,” he shouted that evening at the supper table. “I’m going to supply anybody from Manister House that comes into the shop, even if it happens to be Captain Butcher himself. What’s more, I’m going to bid the time of day to anybody I please. I’m taking no orders from O’Dwyer and St. George.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Bartly cried in fright.

On the glorious Sunday of his rebellion, he had allowed himself to be elected treasurer to the Committee. He was present when the order in question was passed unanimously. He clearly understood that he would be placed in an extremely delicate position by the refusal of his son-in-law to obey.

“I know well what I’m saying,” Clancy said truculently.

“Do you know what would happen to anybody that dared to disobey?” said Bartly. “Have you any idea at all of what would be done to such a lunatic?”

“What would be done to him?” Clancy said.

“He’d get the back torn off him by the cat-o’-nine tails,” Bartly said.

“There isn’t a scut of a Fenian in the whole county that would dare touch me with the cat,” Clancy cried arrogantly.

“They have touched better men than you, ’faith,” Bartly said.

“Be careful what you say,” Clancy said. “I’m in no humour to take any old guff from you.”

“You fool!” cried Bartly. “It’s not the Fenians alone you’d have to fight, but the whole people of Ireland, if you turned traitor. The National Land League was formed last week, with Parnell and Davitt at the head of it. The entire country has sworn allegiance to the League. There are Committees everywhere now. Anybody that dared raise a hand or a voice against the League …”

“That’s a lie,” Clancy said. “All the people are not for it, not by a long chalk. The Church is against it. The rich are against it.”

“The poor are for it, though,” said Bartly, “and they are in the big majority. It’s the poor that always do the fighting. It’s them that will swing the cat, when it has to be swung. The rich won’t save you. The rich and the bishops never save anybody’s skin but their own.”

“I dare them all,” cried Clancy. “I dare them and I double dare them.”

Later that night, Julia made certain that Clancy would carry out his threat to disobey.

“You have to be careful, Jim,” she whispered solicitously when they were in bed together. “Michael is a dangerous man. He doesn’t know the meaning of the word fear and he’ll stop at nothing when he’s roused. I saw him once …”

“Shut up,” Clancy growled as he threw himself upon her. “I’ll show you who is strong. I’ll show you.”

On the following afternoon, Andrew Fitzgerald brought a horse to the village forge from Manister House. He asked Matthew Cohan, the blacksmith, to put a set of new shoes on the animal. Cohan paid no attention to the groom. He continued to strike a red-hot bar of iron that he had on the anvil.

“Did you hear me talking to you, Matt?” the groom said in a louder tone.

Cohan spat and struck the iron bar another blow with his hammer. He took no notice of the question.

“Is it trying to insult me you are?” Andrew Fitzgerald cried as he began to pull off his jacket.

He had been drinking since noon. He got into the habit of drinking alone in his sleeping quarters when Barbara lost interest in him.

“Come on, then,” he cried, spreading his jacket on the ground as a challenge. “If it’s fight you want, there is my coat spread out before you. Step on it, if you think you are able to take the sway from me.”

The blacksmith paused and glanced sideways at the jacket, with longing in his eyes. He was a huge fellow, noted in the district for his power as a wrestler and a weight-lifter. His glance shifted slowly from the coat to Andrew’s widespread legs. He shuddered, spat on his palms, cursed under his breath and then brought the sledge-hammer down on the anvil with his whole power.

This gesture brought a roar of laughter from a crowd that had now gathered.

“What ails you, Matt?” a man shouted. “Is it how you itch where you can’t scratch?”

Excited by the roar of the crowd, the horse took off at a gallop towards the demesne gate.

“Come on,” Andrew shouted, now turning to the jeering people. “Fight me, if there is a man among you. You pack of rebels! I’ll show you what a soldier of the Queen can do.”

Clancy came running over from McNamara’s shop at that moment.

“What’s the matter, Andy?” he said to the groom.

The two of them had recently become cronies, while drinking late at night in the tap-room of Mahon’s hotel.

“Matt Cohan, the dirty bastard,” the groom said, “refuses to shoe my horse for me.”

Clancy turned to the blacksmith and said:

“Is that right, Matt?”

Cohan looked at Clancy in contempt for a moment. Then he spat and began to strike his bar of iron small blows in rapid succession, while he muttered to himself.

“You ought to be ashamed, all of you,” Clancy shouted, addressing the crowd. “You are being led astray by a gang of rowdies that will soon be outlawed. Any day now the Government will crack the whip. O’Dwyer and St. George won’t be dictators for very long, I’m telling you. The hangman’s rope is being greased for their necks.”